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I strongly think that more conviction politicians needed to make strong and free societies. Men are too weak to make final decisions that should not be full of compromise, which many histories have shown. So, more

If politics is the art of riding a trend, then history is the science of uncovering all the trends and understanding their combined significance. Ms. Tymoshenko was a seminal politician but now she is a victim of history.

She overlooks the tendency of 20th century conservatives to ally with dictators. In Thatcher's case, the most notorious was Pinochet (recalled here: http://www.citywatchla.com/lead-stories-hidden/4867-why-would-anyone-celebrate-the-death-of-margaret-thatcher-ask-a-chilean)

It is universally held in Western democracies that no single-party system can be stable over any long term. To attribute the USSR's demise to Thatcher or Reagan is to ignore exactly the theory which they themselves advocated in opposition to the USSR - that eventually the people would rise up against their exploiters. Or at least that a generation of leaders would come forward to harness public discontent.

Those of us in the West who still regret the ascendance of Thatcher et. al. see the current plight of the former Soviet Union as a result of lassez-faire capitalism applied in a nation without the structures of civil society which can keep ambitious plutocrats in check. Only if the justice system is reliably independent is any private citizen secure in their liberty. Political leaders can be especially vulnerable.

Many of the Eastern leaders who praise the right wing of the West are still heroes to us on the Left. Lech Walesa is in this group too. For my own part, I like to say Karl Marx was wrong about communism, but he was right about capitalism. Free markets are incomparably better than a centrally planned economy.

But getting to free markets depends first on more basic freedoms. I'm sure all readers here wish a speedy return to freedom for Ms. Tymoshenko and all her people.

I have never come across an article that is more uncritical than this one. I completely understand that Eastern Europe and former Soviet countries may have a different perspective on Thatcher than what prevails among the political left/right in UK/Europe, but that does not mean that one has to naively eulogise Thather's economic freedom as being some sort of a quest to "liberate" post-Soviet nations. Tch..